Tiles for long periods of time have been used to produce art works. Tile designs have also been used for decorating structures. When producing art works, the various pieces of tile were selected according to color and shape and individually cemented in place to produce the item, person, or scene being created. This approach is very expensive, time consuming, and requires a substantial amount of creative ability. On the other hand, when tile designs are used to provide an abstract type of decorative effect, wherein the color and shape of the tile pieces are selected to provide an overall effect, such as normally found in bathrooms, kitchens and swimming pools, such tile designs are created by combination of square tile units that are manufactured by mass production techniques so that they can be purchased relatively inexpensively for every day use. Such abstract tile designs generally use square tile units that include the individual tile pieces secured to a flexible screen-type of backing. The square tile units are usually formed of a plurality of multi- or single-colored tile pieces individually mounted to the screen, with spaces therebetween. This allows the square tile units to be permanently mounted on a surface by means of cement or grout. The square tile units are initially positioned in place and urged into wet cement or grout, and in the case of vertically inclined surfaces, at times also secured to the surface by nails. Then additional cement or grout is placed over the entire surface of the abutting tile units so that the cement or grout is allowed to fill the spaces between individual tile pieces. The surface is then wiped to allow the polished front faces of the tile pieces to extend beyond the cement or grout coating, while the cement or grout secures the entire tile units and the individual tile pieces in place.
These commercially mass produced square tile units are usually formed with the individual tile pieces secured to the flexible screen backing in the form of standard one foot squares. Such tile units can be obtained with the tile pieces forming the design being of the same color and shape, or can have a variety of colors and a variety of shapes and sizes. The size of the individual tile pieces can be as small as one-eighth of an inch to as large as three inches. In the case of ceramic tile, the exterior or front face, and part of the side edges, of the individual tile pieces can include a wide variety of colors and shades, including changing colors and shades within a single tile piece. The tile pieces also have highly polished surfaces that further enhance their attractiveness. The reverse or back side of the tile pieces usually has a rough unfinished, uncolored, gray surface. This allows the tile pieces to be adhered to the screen, and later to the cement or grout when permanently mounted in place. The tile pieces are also made so that side edges of the tile pieces adjacent to the front surface and the side surfaces are slightly rounded. This allows the tile units to be mounted in place with some of the cement or grout removed in the spaces between the tile pieces, and still project the colored effect of the edges of the tile pieces.
These high volume, commercially available tile units are created to be highly repetitive in design, wherein large volumes of these tile units can be purchased at relatively low costs and wherein each of such square tile units are essentially identical to each other. Of course, depending upon each individual run by the manufacturer, the tile units of a single design may vary somewhat in color from one run to the other. Such ceramic tile designs have an added advantage in that their surfaces are fired during manufacture to provide a very hard and water-resistant front surfaces. Hence these square tile units can be mounted, side by side, to form decorative shower and bathroom walls, swimming pool surfaces, and at times floors, without fear that the colors and designs will change significantly with time. The individual surfaces of the ceramic tile pieces are essentially waterproof and will not noticeably fade in color, even if exposed to the sun's direct rays. Hence, such ceramic tile units form an ideal means of decorating indoor and outdoor surfaces.
As previously mentioned, these tile units usually take the form of one foot square units so that these tile units can be mounted in place adjacent to each other and abutting each other to cover a wall, floor or pool surface to provide the desired decorative effect. If an additional design is to be included within the tiled surface, the additional tile design unit had to be created in a square or rectangular form, preferably in a multiple of the square tile units size, so that the amount of cutting of the additional tile design unit would be minimized. If the additional tile design unit was to have a non-standard or irregular shape, the individual square tile units forming the background would need to be cut to fit the irregular shape of the added tile design. This procedure is highly time consuming and very expensive. Of course, another approach would be to leave an open space and allow the tile designer to individually create the additional tile design to fit the open space. Again this creative approach is also very time consuming and expensive.
In a similar fashion as mentioned above with regard to the foot square tiles, individual, irregularly-shaped tile designs have been provided for pools and walls with the commercially tile pieces secured to the flexible type screening material. With this type of tile design, just in the case of the square foot tiles, the tile designs are required to be secured in place by the use of cement or grout. These types of tile designs are mounted in the pool at the time the pool is being installed so that the cement conforms with the rest of the pool floor. When mounting on existing cement wall, the entire wall, or a substantial portion thereof, would need to be coated with cement to conform the cement used to mount the tile design with the rest of the wall.
Hence, as can be seen, the specialized designs of tile in the past had to be either created and cemented in place at the location, or else created elsewhere on the flexible backing and shipped to the location to be mounted and then cemented in place. In the latter situation, if the tile designs were required to fit within an allotted space in a surface previously decorated with square tile units, such specialized tile design units were required to be square or rectangular in its overall shape to fit within the shape of the open space. Hence, in order to conform with the square or rectangular shape, such specialized tile designs were created with individually shaped parts and pieces, a large number of which were individually manufactured for each particular design. If a new design was to be created, the differently-shaped tiles of the desired color and shape were needed to be especially manufactured. Hence, in the past, the manufacturer of such tile designs required tile piece manufacturing capability, or required the ability to order individually shaped and colored tile pieces from manufacturers. In order to manufacture such specialized tile designs at a reasonable cost, these specialized tile pieces are required to be manufactured in large volumes. Hence, there is a limited number of designs that can be made available without undergoing large costs in inventory. It is understood that tile designs can be created in low volume using tile pieces produced by home hobbiest-type of ceramic tile manufacturing techniques, however, these tile pieces do not have the strength and color retention characteristics of the commercially manufactured tiles and therefore are of limited use, particularly if they are to be used outdoors.